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DHS Counterterror Centers Produce 'A Bunch of Crap,' Senate Finds

They’re supposed to be “one of the centerpieces of our counterterrorism strategy,” according to Janet Napolitano, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. In practice, not so much.

The Senate’s bipartisan Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found no evidence that DHS’ 70-plus fusion centers — places where state, local and federal law enforcement analyze and share information – uncovered a single terrorist threat between April 1, 2009 and April 30, 2010. During that time, the FBI discovered would-be New York subway attacker Najibullah Zazi; U.S. Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan killed 13 people at Fort Hood; Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to blow up a Detroit-bound airplane; and, in early May 2010, Faisal Shahzad attempted to detonate an SUV in Times Square.

The Senate panel writes in its just-released report, analyzing more than 80,000 fusion center documents, “the inquiry could not identify a contribution such fusion center reporting made to disrupt an active terrorist plot.” Unnamed DHS officials told the panel the fusion centers produce “predominantly useless information” and “a bunch of crap.” ...

As civil libertarian groups have long warned, (the centers are) hives of incompetence, bureaucracy, mission creep and possible civil-liberties abuses. Despite instituting privacy protections in 2009, the Senate report discloses, “DHS continued to store troubling intelligence reports from fusion centers on U.S. persons, possibly in violation of the Privacy Act.” A third of reviewed fusion center intelligence reports either “lacked any useful information” on terrorism or potentially violated civil liberties.